Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Prime
Now the magpie slowly flew from the wet forest floor, holding a hand-made bag filled with hand-carved figures of Noya’s village. A pair of brown eyes gazed over the magpie who tweeted a sweet song, gazing at him inquisitively.
“He is foolish, he should forget about me….” Asahi mumbled to himself, before he retreated to his room of charms and protection sigils, a colourful world where he could retreat to his kind thoughts. I should not.
I would not.
I could not.
The magpie, meanwhile, landed on Asahi’s shoulder, silent over his grief. Sensing the change of aura of the nearby village, it thought to itself:
The village deserved the punishment for destroying the balance of the forest by killing our animals excessively and destroying their homes.
The bag dropped to the forest ground, where little spirits curiously examined the carvings of Asahi, the protector of the forest and the constant visitor.
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Nishinoya, trapped in the storehouse thanks to the wrath of the villagers for causing an incurable plague, peered through the window at his village of exhausted doctors carrying another body. There are indeed more men and women buried in the ground than those walking, Nishinoya darkly thought to himself, eyes burning with tears, as he rubbed the leather cord of his necklace, seeking whatever energy it held. It flickered like a dying firefly amidst the dark forest.
Please be alright, Asahi
Please be alright.
He stared at the broken necklace in his hands. Maybe I should not have found you, then I would…
The bright sun burned through Nishinoya’s skin as he carried the grains from a travelling merchant to his hut, where whispers grew louder than the footsteps that tracked through the heavy snow.
One villager with a mustard yellow cap pulled up a heavy sack of grain as he said, “It seems that the giant in the forest took the crops from Hans’ field, and it left a rare necklace on the ground, because he mercifully let go of the rabbit from his homemade trap….”
“No, it cannot be. Giants do not simply leave gifts. They steal naughty children and curdle our milk.” A female villager walked past him with a disdained frown. “Apparently, Hans got enchanted by his charm, and now he acts docile, following his wife’s orders.”
An old man came by, with a piece of grain sticking out of his mouth. “How about Smith? He helped a stag untangle its horns during winter. He picked up gifts. I think it was an axe with a glided handle left in the forest. He said that he searched for the person who left the gift, but in the end, committed himself to God and the saints, going for a pilgrimage to cleanse himself from the material things.”
“That cannot be, that is only spoken by mad women who wander by the streets…”
Nishinoya frowned at the constant gossip in the village, grumbled to himself, “Maybe I am like that….”
Suga, a cheery young priest in training with a mole on the side of his cheek, came to Nishinoya. “And I guess you are on the right side to have your ears sealed from gossip and malice…”
Nishinoya nearly leapt up at Suga’s chuckle. “How do you know…”
“Based on your expression; it speaks more than the scribes who illuminate our manuscripts.” Suga beamed quickly. “But whatever you do, just stay in the safety of the village, because there will not be any saints to watch us out there…”
Nishinoya shrugged. Nothing extraordinary would prompt him to come out of the safety of the village. After all, he could do whatever he wanted, and no villager would bat an eye at him, because they considered him the wind.
And like the wind, it goes wherever it goes.
Nishinoya would scoff off to his past self, should he have a chance and the intelligence that he will not enter the forest and entertain Asahi’s request? And yet it was a decision that is not prompted by superstition, through the window-gazing wistfully towards the forest. I hope he is not upset by my decision, rubbing at the broken charm repeatedly.
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